Distance Medley Relay Beats Stanford, Automati

BY ANDRES FOCIL

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – In the first day of competition at the Razorback Invitational, the rivalry between Arkansas and Stanford was rekindled on Friday night as the UA distance medley relay team beat the Cardinal DMR team at the Randal Tyson Track Center.

The Hogs time of 9:35.93 was good enough to automatically qualify them for the 2001 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships while the Cardinal time of 9:37.94 provisionally qualified them for the NCAA meet.

This was the first meeting between the schools DMR teams since Stanford edged out Arkansas for the team title at the 2000 NCAA Outdoor National Championships in Durham, N.C., last June.

In the leadoff 1,200-meter leg of the DMR, Arkansas’ Ryan Travis trailed Stanford’s Gabe Jennings, a U.S. Olympian in the 1,500 meters, until the last lap when Travis overtook Jennings to take the lead before handing off to Josh Landreth.

Landreth held onto the lead for the Razorbacks in the 400-meter leg and handed off to UA’s Chris Mulvaney for the 800-meter leg.

The Razorbacks and Stanford were neck and neck going into the last leg with Mulvaney handing off to Sharif Karie and Stanford’s Ryan Carroll handing off to Don Sage. In the 1,600-meter leg, Karie and Sage battled through six laps with Carroll taking over the lead in the sixth lap but Karie went out in the seventh lap and passed Carroll for the last time to clinch the victory for the Hogs.

“We wanted to come out, run a good race and qualify for the national meet,” Karie said. “That was our goal to come out and run a good race and that is what we did. Anytime that we run against Stanford, we really want to come out and perform well. And tonight we did.”

The Hogs and Cardinal will face off again in over a month at the Indoor Championships on March 9-10.

“It was good for our distance medley relay team to qualify for nationals,” UA assistant coach Dick Booth said. “They ran a good race.”

Running the 5,000-meter run for the first time in the indoor season, Fayetteville native Daniel Lincoln provisionally qualified for the NCAA meet in his second event running a time of 14:04.92. Alabama’s David Kimani automatically qualified for NCAA’s and broke the Randal Tyson building record with a time of 13:35.21.

UA head coach John McDonnell was not in attendance at the Razorback Invitational after suffering a heart attack on January 14.

The Razorback Invitational will conclude on Saturday, Jan. 27, with the first race beginning at 10 a.m.